How Kundalini Yoga Prepared Me for Birth & The Ring of Fire
Birth is not just an experience; it’s a complete unraveling—a dismantling of the body, the mind, and the nervous system.
The moment a baby crowns, known as the Ring of Fire, is often described in purely physical terms—the sensation of stretching, the burning, the body opening beyond what feels possible. But it is more than that. It is a threshold. It is raw. It is intense. It strips away resistance and requires a deep capacity to stay with what is unfolding, no matter how uncomfortable.
This is why I practiced Kundalini Yoga before pregnancy, during pregnancy, and, when I could, into postpartum. Because birth is not something you get through. It is something you step into.
Kundalini Yoga: Expanding Your Capacity
Kundalini Yoga is sometimes called the yoga of awareness, but in many ways, it is also the yoga of endurance. It strengthens the nervous system so that when intensity arises, you know how to stay with it. So much of the practice is about training yourself to hold pressure, to meet challenge, to soften into discomfort instead of resisting it.
It is about building wattage—increasing your ability to hold more. This is how we expand.
Holding postures long after your body wants to give up.
Expanding your breath when everything in you wants to contract.
Developing a strong, steady mind when pressure is rising.
Getting Comfortable With Discomfort
We speak so much about birth as beautiful, sacred, and powerful—which it is. But it is also a test of endurance. It is discomfort. It is pressure. It is the moment where everything in you wants to stop, yet you must go on. It’s like running a marathon without ever training for it.
Kundalini Yoga prepared me for this, not by making it easier, but by teaching me how to stay with the experience. The practice teaches you to move through what feels impossible
Breathwork gave me stamina for the waves of contractions.
Kriyas taught me how to stay with sensation rather than resist it.
Meditation rewired my nervous system to remain steady inside intensity.
Everything I had practiced led me here. And when I reached the moment where I thought I couldn’t do it anymore—the moment every woman reaches—I knew how to lean into the fire instead of fighting it.
The Wisdom of Preparation
My mother gave birth to five children. When I asked her if she had any advice for labour, her response was, "Nothing can prepare you for it." And while I found some of that to be true, I was also deeply grateful for having prepared in every way I could—with Kundalini Yoga.
I know it had the most profound impact on me and Florence—on my nervous system, my ability to withstand intensity, and my capacity to surrender. So much so that they called me a silent labourer. I certainly wasn’t silent towards the end, but that’s another story for another time.
Trusting the Body’s Intelligence
If you can get out of your head, your body knows what to do. The mind craves control, but birth cannot be controlled. It does not happen in the mind. It happens in the body, in the breath, in the spaces beyond thinking.
This is why Kundalini Yoga is so powerful—it teaches you how to stay open, even when every part of you wants to close. It builds the capacity to hold more—more love, more patience, more surrender.
And when you rise from it—reborn, remade, more powerful than you ever knew—you will understand that you were never burning.
You were the fire. You were the transformation, the threshold every mother must cross.
If you are preparing for this journey—whether preconception, pregnancy, or postpartum—Kundalini is an incredible tool to have by your side.
Want to explore if Kundalini Yoga is the right fit for you? Let’s connect—you can reach out for a 20 minute call here.